Toshio Kuroda, JOICFP Chairperson

No.3 New Dimension of Population Pressure

Being concerned over potential political crises caused by population increase, US demographer W.S. Thompson discussed population pressure in his book "Plenty of People,"(1944, Lancaster) just after World War II. He pointed out three regions, the Balkan Peninsula, French Indochina and Far East Asia as regions being likely to suffer from outbreaks of war. He saw these three regions to be danger spots suffering from overpopulation.

The danger spots with overpopulations at that time were limited within the national borders or a region. A few years after World War II, this microscopic population pressure was intensified to global pressure, and today, this heavy pressure is challenging the sustainability of human beings. Some aspects of the global population pressure can be shown with the following data.

The first aspect is the future trend of the world population itself. Figure 1 shows the long-term population projection until 2300 prepared by the United Nations Population Division (World Population to 2300, New York, 2003). It is predicted that the world population will be stabilized at around 9 billion after 2050 with nominal falls and rises. Therefore, population pressure could be disregarded as far as the world population as a whole is concerned.

However, what should be noted to occur in the future will be great changes in regional population distribution leading to regional gaps in population pressure. One of the most remarkable cases are the future population projections of Africa and Europe. Figure 2 shows the population projections of the two regions. In 1950, the population in Europe was around 500 million and was more than double the population in Africa with about 200 million. In 2000, the population in Africa exceeded that of Europe, after which the population in Europe has turned to decline and stabilize. Meanwhile, the population of Africa will continue to increase rapidly until 2100 after which it will stabilize at around 2 billion with small rises and falls. It is surprising that African population in 2100 will be 2.2 trillion compared with 0.5 trillion of Europe.

Another notable phenomenon is the emergence of huge populated countries with over one billion people. As shown in Figure 3, China had already 550 million and India had 350 million in 1950, after 50 years, in 2000, the population in China exceeded 1.3 billion and that of India 1 billion. The ratio of the populations of both countries to the whole population in Asia has fallen from more than 60 percent to over 50 percent. Even so, it is easily understood that the population pressure of the two countries is enormous. In particular, both countries have been undergoing remarkable economic development, and their growing influence on the international community is drawing world attention.

The above examples show only a few aspects of structural changes in the world population in the early half of the 21st century. Yet, they may illustrate the intensity of impact of regional heterogeneity in population variables affected by population explosion.

The great population transition projected to occur in the early half of this century will arrive at the time when frontiers on the earth to support the increase in population have all been exhaustively used, and economic development has approached the limit. It suggests the beginning of a new dimension of population pressure.

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